All the above incidents, described as to have happened on the Middle Passage, are amply corroborated by the other witnesses. The slaves lie on the bare boards, says surgeon Wilson. They are frequently bruised, and the prominent parts of the body excoriated, adds the same gentleman, as also Trotter and Newton. They have been seen by Morley wallowing in their blood and excrement. Claxton, Ellison, and Hall describe them as refusing sustenance, and compelled to eat by the whip. Morley has seen the pannekin dashed against their teeth, and the rice held in their mouths, to make them swallow it, till they were almost strangled, and they have even been thumb-screwed[1] with this view in the ships of Towne and Millar. The man stolen at Galenas river, says the former, also refused to eat, and persisted till he died. A woman, says the latter, who was brought on board, refused sustenance, neither would she speak. She was then ordered the thumb-screws, suspended in the mizzen rigging, and every attempt was made with the cat to compel her to eat, but to no purpose. She died in three or four days afterwards. Mr. Millar was told that she had said, the night before she died, "She was going to her friends."
As a third specific instance, in another vessel, may be mentioned that related by Mr. Isaac Parker. There was a child, says he, on board, nine months old, which refused to eat, for which the captain took it up in his hand, and flogged it with a cat, saying, at the same time, "Damn you, I'll make you eat, or I'll kill you." The same child having swelled feet, the captain ordered them to be put into water, though the ship's cook told him it was too hot. This brought off the skin and nails. He then ordered sweet oil and cloths, which Isaac Parker himself applied to the feet; and as the child at mess time again refused to eat, the captain again took it up and flogged it, and tied a log of mango-wood eighteen or twenty inches long, and of twelve or thirteen pounds weight, round its neck, as a punishment. He repeated the flogging for four days together at mess time. The last time after flogging it, he let it drop out of his hand, with the same expression as before, and accordingly in about three quarters of an hour the child died. He then called its mother to heave it overboard, and beat her for refusing. He however forced her to take it up, and go to the ship's side, where, holding her head on one side, to avoid the sight, she dropped her child overboard, after which she cried for many hours.
Besides instances of slaves refusing to eat, with the view of destroying themselves, and dying in consequence of it, those of their going mad are confirmed by Towne, and of their jumping overboard, or attempting to do it, by Towne, Millar, Ellison, and Hall.
Other incidents on the passage, mentioned by some of the witnesses in their examination, may be divided into three kinds:
The first kind consists of insurrections on the part of the slaves. Some of these frequently attempted to rise, but were prevented, (Wilson, Towne, Trot-
- ↑ To show the severity of this punishment, Mr. Dove says, that while two slaves were under the torture of the thumb-screws, the sweat ran down their faces, and they trembled as under a violent ague fit; and Mr. Ellison has known instances of their dying, a mortification having taken place in their thumbs in consequence of these screws.
